April 28, 2011

In an earlier post it was mentioned that your Self Leadership is comprised of three entities. The three entities are your Personal Identity, your Life Purpose, and your Internal Director. Your Self Leadership casts a “presence” or a “shadow” on everyone you connect with during your workday. The nature of your presence and your shadow you cast with everyone you meet comes from the mixture of the composition, integration, and unification the three entities in your Self Leadership.

When speaking of your presence, it is referring to your bearing, personality, or appearance characterized by poise and confidence. When speaking of your shadow, it is referring to your bearing, personality, or appearance characterized by a sense of doubt, a sense of gloominess, or lack of a sense of assuredness.

The nature of your Self Leadership significantly affects the nature of your presence and your shadow. Thus, it is your presence which usually gets you that job, or lands you that promotion, or takes you to the “C” level positions in a company. It is your shadow, which can stop you from getting that job, or landing that promotion, or get you to a “C” level position in a company.

In thinking about the idea of your presence or shadow, it is understood that these images can be known correctly by what is observable, seen, heard, experienced, or sensed by your co-workers, your friends, and usually by yourself. The experienced part of your image, either your presence or your shadow, can usually be felt or sensed within yourself through your moods.

The ”unseen” part of a your image, either your presence or your shadow, can be known intuitively by linking disparate facts into a theme to gain an understanding of the image you are manifesting in a particular situation with co-workers. However, it is unlikely that you know that you should do this, much less know how to develop the necessary skills to use your intuition.

The intuitive skills you should develop are those that enable you to gain awarenessof the effects of your shadow and/or your presence image with your co-workers. The intuitive skills can also give you the insightto know how to change the facets of your image.

It is known through research that 42% of your image (on average) can be known with reasonable clarity. The other 58% (on average) of your image remains elusive to yourself and to your co-workers and people around you. This is because most of your image is communicated from your unconscious typically developed during childhood.

This occurs because your unconscious is full of millions of childhood unconscious assumptions. All of your unconscious assumptions are programmed to operate on the basis of stimulus-response. When an unconscious assumption gets stimulated, it unconsciously responds to stimuli most often from other employee(s). So when you respond to a stimulus from a co-worker or co-workers, the response is automatic, and it is either beneficial (i.e., “Presence”) or not beneficial (i.e., “Shadow”) depending on the situation and the other employees involved.

As mentioned, your image is largely based on the original programming received during your childhood, unless the programming has been changed. The original programming can change through beneficial experiences associated higher education, work experiences, military experiences, relationships, and appropriate coaching, to mention a few ways.

If your original childhood programming was beneficial to you in the line of work you are in, then you tend to be much more conscious of your image and how it benefits yourself, your co-workers, and your work itself on a daily basis. Most likely, you are performing with an air of presence. Alternatively, if you are a person who is unaware of their own image and its adverse effects on yourself and other co-worker, you are likely performing with an air of a shadow that adversely affects your co-workers and yourself. In this later case, a change in your programming is recommended. In either case, by developing your Self Leadership, you will lessen the impact of your Shadow and add impact to your state of Presence.

February 26, 2011

Self Leadership is about doing the right things in the right ways for the right reasons when it comes to yourself, your career, your job, and your development in your field. By doing the right things in the right way for the right reasons, you bring “value” to your employer, to your job, and to yourself. Your personal “value” is by far the best defense against losing your job or feeling poorly about yourself. Also, your “value” is by far the best offense you have to grow and develop yourself, to get ahead in your career, your field, and your organization. Third, your “value” is by far the best way for you to feel comfortable within yourself, to feel your self worth and self confidence, and to feel like you know where you want to go with your life and your career so that it means something to you.

Self Leadership is the creation of your self through your personal identity, your internal director, and your life purpose to be of “value” to yourself and others. Your personal identity is your unique personality and what you stand for as a person formed by your core values, beliefs, interests, motivations, moods, strengths, and gifts. Your internal director is your inner coach who guides you through your work life and your life through carefully chosen principles and personal rules to make appropriate decisions for yourself and other people. Your life purpose enables you to escape the existential sense of nothingness and meaninglessness and moves you towards a life that has meaning, relevance, and worth to you and the society you live in by making valued contributions that make a difference.